Silversun

UnsilentMajorty - I live in New Zealand, which means the great majority of my source footage is 25fps PAL and that's what I set in Premiere. What's your DVD region? NTSC is usually 29.97fps.

When I rip the VOBs, I only rip video tracks, so I don't need to demux later on. And I don't convert to AVI - if you convert to uncompressed, they're huge; and if you use a compressor it'd reduce your source quality. (Although I'm unfamiliar with "lossless" codecs and how they work.) And converting to mpeg seems like an even worse idea - I've had friends who did that, and then they weren't able to make those vids at DVD quality.

I just work directly with the VOBs through my avisynth scripts, which seems to work well.

If you run into any tech difficulties, try asking on the vidding community at livejournal. Lots of techies there who are much more proficient than me.

AutumnColorsღ

hitmanyr2k- Excellent video, I always feel bad for Danny in the film. Poor guy being treated like a dog but his fight moves are sweet! Btw, good song choice, Sevendust is a good rock band.

UnsilentMajorty

SilverSun:

I've completed my first NLE music video (it's a remake of one of my old analogue ones; The Secret of My Success) and have it ready to go as an exported HuffYUV avi file.

Question:

What filters... If any... Do you use in AviSynth for post-production compression?

What are recommended settings for each?

.......

The reason I ask is the music videos we make aren't Anime and are live action, 24 FPS (Progressive) film sources (DVD via AviSynth direct editing) and they look pretty damn good as is in my humble opinion.

I'm not a digiphile who is going to sit there and make sure every single pixel is correctly colored and things like that, but I'm also not going to release garbage quality videos either since this is the age of lossless digital medium as well.

I'm also asking because most of the guides on the net are for Anime and a lot of the stuff does not apply once you get familiar with what you are doing and the general process of how you go about making videos in NLE programs from DVD source material.

Thanks

Silversun

I don't use any avisynth filters for post-production. Or avisynth filters in general, really. Like you said, I'm not really a technophile so I pay a certain amount of attention to quality, but I'm not too hung up on the details. So I'm probably the wrong person to ask on this front.

AutumnColorsღ

Heres a video I made of Abby/Noelle with a bit of Brian in it (The Truth about Cats & Dogs). The video is basically how Abby feels like she can't be perfect like Noelle is, and how she feels like the girl next door for Brian. But of course the ending shows that she is wrong.

I used the song "Girl next door" By: Saving Jane.

Girl Next Door

UnsilentMajorty

Rainstorm, this is an EXCELLLENT video

I think doing videos to movies where there isn't a lot of action are the harder ones because you must pull every little bit of footage you can like glances, turns, how someone moves and other things to match the song.

What did/do you use to make videos?

(I don't want to be presumptous, but if you just Windows Movie Maker I highly urge you to get a copy of Adobe Premiere, or Sony Vegas as you definitely have the talent to use that software )

Keep up the great work!

................................

Here is just a re-release of one of my older videos, but done with digital editing and a DVD source:

The Secret of My Success

The video itself only has a few different scenes, but the biggest change is of course the quality compared to the original, VHS analogue version I posted before. It is now in letterbox with two channel stereo. Even though it has been compressed with Divx, the quality is still 100x better than any VHS source could ever produce (duh!).

I plan on redoing two more... Ghost and Blade Runner... Because these are my best videos in my opinion and I want to have a good verison of them.

As far as my next original music videos, I may do "Legally Blonde" to "A Day in the Sun" by Annelise Van Der Pol and if someone can suggest a good song, Batman Begins.

AutumnColorsღ

UnsilentMajorty- Hey thanks, I appreciate the compliment! I actually was a bit afraid it wouldnt turn out as good with the lack of Noelle scenes I had, but it worked out. I just use Windows movie maker to make my videos. I wish I had a program like Adobe Premiere, but I cant afford that stuff right now. Maybe sometime in the future I will because I know they have some kick ass effects on it that I would love to use.

Heres another video I just made of Noah/Allie (The Notebook) Told from Allie's POV of how she was once hurt by Noah and their past but she returns back to his place a few years later and they start to fall in love again, but she is still afraid of getting hurt. The color scenes are all present, and the older time color is the past.

Falling for you

AutumnColorsღ

double post

UnsilentMajorty

I am going to recommend Sony Vegas to you because it is more effects-friendly AND the fact the interface is very much like WMM which would be easier for you to get used to... Which is why I chose Adobe Premire because the interface is like my old two editing VCR days with a preview and production monitor and controls (vegas puts these controls in one panel).

Download the trial (I think there is a trial?) version and see for yourself.

I can't access this video because of Yousend It's specific send/receive limitations.

If I may, I recommend uploading the finished file (.avi or .wma) to File Den.com where I have my videos hosted -- This goes for everyone who wants to share videos as well.

The reason is File Den is free and each user gets 500 MBs of free space and they DON'T delete your files after a set period of time which means they can stay their indefinitely. There are also no bandwith limitations (uploads/downloads) which is another reason I use them (all the videos I posted in this thread are hosted there).

The other general reason to host the actual finished file is it lets people download it and watch the video at their liesure, so they don't have to worry about net congestion and traffic for streaming videos like on Youtube and similar sites.

AutumnColorsღ

Well thanks for all the helpful suggestions, I will look into Sony Vegas, I already went to Adobe Premiere site and read stuff about it, it sounds pretty cool.

Edit: Ok Im on the Sony Vegas site now, and it shows four different verisons I can try out, what do you recommend?

UnsilentMajorty

The professional (full feature) version... Version 6 (the organge box).

I don't know what the limitations are on software like this... Meaning, I don't know how much they will let you do with a trial version... But you can get a general feel for it if you like.

Personally, even though I recommend Vegas for you, I prefer Adobe because I think the interface is more intuitive. You have your timeline, you have two windows (one for the footage you are going to use; one for the edited master) and that is all you really need. Vegas puts them all in one window/panel... But so does WMM which is why I recommended Vegas first; If you try Adobe Premiere out it may actually be more intuitive in the end.

Also, the one thing to keep in mind with any NLE software is you can no longer use Divx or Xvid encoded movies for your source material. You will have to use retail DVDs -- Which can get complicated, but once you know what you are doing is easy as pie.

I started a thread on the Webmaster's Board that is a primer on some of the issues you and others may encounter and should be aware of if you take up making videos a hobby:

LINK

AutumnColorsღ

Great, thanks so much for the help. I just downloaded and am now installing the Version 6 now. Hopefully I dont get too addicted to this program because I wont be able to afford it for awhile

novaleigh

could you please repost this video, i love that movie and i love those two characters.

UnsilentMajorty

Since you now have a professional level program at your disposal...

I am going to go through the basic steps you should become familiar with to make videos like SilverSun and myself do (using theatrical movie footage) if you want to do a "The Truth About Cats & Dogs Video" for example.

1) Rip your DVD footage to your hard drive.
2) Index OR convert --- One or the other -- The footage into a useable format Sony Vegas can use to edit that is FRAME ACCURATE.
3) Edit your video.
4) Export your video using a lossless codec like HuffYUV
5) Compress the video for distribution using Divx or Xvid

If you want in-depth tutorials for this go here:

Anime DVD Guide

This is for Anime (Japanes Animation) music videos, but the same principles apply.

It can be overwhelming at first, which is why I am going to list the areas you need to read first and you can skip the rest because most of it is just background stuff for techies and or only applies to animated videos and not film footage:

A) Setting up a Video Editing Project ----->Look at the Sony Vegas Section
B) Getting Your Video ------->Ripping DVDs / Using AviSynth for direct VOB editing
C) Exporting Your AMV for Compression ------> Look at the Sony Vegas Section
D) Online Video Distribution

Things to keep in mind:

-You want to use 24 FPS Progressive footage (use this when setting up your project and when editing as Sony Vegas will edit 23.97 frames much easier than Adobe Premiere which is one advantage of Vegas over Premiere).

-You CAN use MP3's for your music sources. The guide says don't and that it will crash the editing programs. This is false as I used an MP3 for my "Success" video and it works just fine (also, how many people actually own CDs these days?)

................

I think the hardest part may be when it comes to deciding what to do with the files (VOB files) you rip from the DVD to your hard drive.

You can convert the VOBs to large .avi files and load those into Vegas and edit those much easier if you have a slow processor...

...OR...

You can do what SilverSun and myself do and that is use AviSynth and use the VOB files directly. This is a better way as you aren't converting the VOBs to another format which not only saves space, but this also doesn't loose any video quality because you aren't converting from one format to another and are using the original VOB files to make (render) your final video.

I recommend the later option ONLY if you have a very fast processor (3.0 GHz or more; Pentium IV or Athalon XP 64-bit processor) as this method depends heavily on being able to render "on the fly" by accessing the actual compressed VOB files and decompress the images.

Regardless of what method you choose, you are going to need a lot of hard drive space. I would suggest at least 30 GBs or more of free space to be on the safe side... Especially, if you do the first method which will involve making HUGE .avi files -- 3 to 4 GBs (gigabytes) in size -- you can load into Sony Vegas (this is why the second method is preferred if you have a fast processor as you are only using the VOB files which are only 1.5 GBs a piece depending on the movie).

Let me and SilverSun know if you have any problems as I've spent a week straight sotring through the process and want to make yours and others first-time a much more simple and straight-forward process than I had because I had to literally figure things out for myself and as it turns out, 90% of what you need to know how to do is VERY simple in a lot of respects, but there are a lot of little steps and complications that you must learn that make the bigger picture very easy to follow.

AutumnColorsღ

Well thanks for the help

I made a new music video but with the same old program I am using. I put it on youtube for now because none of the other programs are working for me right now. The video is about Wolf/Virginia from the mini series (10th Kingdom). I hope you all like.

Private Emotions